Private Sector Driven Economy

By
Yohane Mbeeya Moono

Development has the rhetoric term that has been the loudest spoken over the course of the time the country attained her independence. The government has always indicated that it is in the hurry to develop the country.
Against this background, the government being the chief policy maker can be apportioned some blame for failure to show leadership and inability to provide the favourable laws on the Development agenda.
There has been talk of the Public-Private Partnerships to accelerate the development of the country. The talk of Decentralization had long dominated the media as the future of the development of the country. However, no political and government will seemed to have been attached to this talk.
The Private Sector Driven Economy is possible when the chief policy maker in the land does:

1. Create an enabling environment for the private sector to flourish. The said private sector should be led by local entrepreneurs. Government should create a portal where entrepreneurs should be able to register easily and the necessary requirements for business registration found in one place. This can either be through online platforms or a physical office. Government should ensure that business registration can be done with 12 hours.

2. Give the best business incentives to the local entrepreneurs in order to make them more competitive with other sector players from within the Southern African region and beyond. Lowering the cost of doing business for the country’s local entrepreneurs would be the best recipe for the private sector to lead the economic agenda. The more local entrepreneurs grow in their businesses the more they would want to invest in their country. Hence the need to give them the best business incentives.

3. The government withdraws from being an active player in the private sector so that the private sector becomes more attractive to many entrepreneurs. This means that the government becomes the regulate through the provision of legal guidance in the conduct of business by the local entrepreneurs. Additionally, the lending rates for the local entrepreneurs should be lowered to make them affordable for many entrepreneurs. It only when the local entrepreneurs are able to access capital easily and fast that they Private Sector will be more competitive and attractive to many entrepreneurs in many parts of the country.

4. Government should come with a deliberate policy and legal framework that entails that any foreign firm must partner with a Zambian firm when setting up the business. This will enable the Zambians to be major economic players and when the foreign firm leaves the business will continue running and it will be run by Zambians.

The encouragement of Private Sector especially the local entrepreneurs taking the lead in driving the economic agenda of the country will help to reduce externalization of the profits generated from the business.

The Development of this country depends on the citizens being given the license to push the economic agenda. The Small and Medium sized Entrepreneurs are the key economic drivers that this country needs right now. The government should actualize the concerns for the development of the Small and Medium sized Entrepreneurs.

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